The Don Draper Approach to Answering Questions

Betty Draper (January Jones) speaking Italian in a S3 ep of ‘Mad Men’

Anyone who’s ever watched ‘Mad Men’ knows that Don Draper isn’t exactly a likeable character. He cheats on his wife, has a bad habit of disappearing for hours or even weeks without telling anyone, drinks entirely too much, has a fear of commitments, and the list goes on and on. But one thing I admire about him is his ability to hold things close to his chest. Very rarely does he utter more than one-word answers to anyone, whether it be to his wife, his boss, his children, or whomever he’s sleeping with at the time. Maybe that insinuates he’s a lonely man who doesn’t want to let anyone in, but to me it also makes him a man.

All the ladies love Don Draper. Form a queue after Salem the Robot Cat.

This was going to be an entirely different blog entry. I had a witty title picked out and everything. I e-mailed someone I’ve known most of my life; as long as I can remember, actually. Spilled my guts to this person and asked them to think about what I’d told them and to give me a call back on my days off. I didn’t get a call on Monday and thought maybe they were just busy. Then I didn’t get a call or an e-mail Tuesday and that’s when I realized the person thought I’d lost all my marbles (which I clarified in the e-mail wasn’t the case). All this to say that as I play catch-up with ‘Mad Men’, maybe I need to be more like Don Draper. Not the sleeping around or disappearing, though the latter would be convenient at times. But holding things closer to my chest. I like to say, “I’m runnin’ outta sleeve to wear my heart on,” but in the end, there’s an awful lot that people just honestly don’t care to know about. And perhaps this was the case with what was disclosed in the e-mail to my lifelong friend. They had called on my birthday and wanted to know how I was doing, but they were actually only asking politely and didn’t really want to truly know.

So I’m going to try exercising the Don Draper strategy. It won’t work, and anyone who knows me knows that and is probably laughing as they read this. I don’t think any Southerner, male or female, could be a Don Draper when it comes to answering questions. But I’ll give it a go.

In closing, I’ve been meaning to share this meme and just haven’t found a way to fit it in. It doesn’t really fit in this blog, as I value the friend whom I’ve been writing about and whom I’m sure I’ll hear back from tomorrow (Murphy’s Law) since I’ve blogged about them tonight. But the below meme is good advice from the Peabody Award-winning ‘Girls’. Hope everyone’s having a great week–brt